The spread of cancer cells from a primary tumor site to distant organs is known as metastasis. Metastasis has been considered one of the most intriguing aspects of the pathogenesis of cancer. This is certainly true to the extent that cancer metastasis is responsible for most therapeutic failures when the disease is treated, as patients succumb to the multiple tumor growth. The extent to which metastasis occurs varies with the individual type of tumor. Melanoma, breast cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer are particularly prone to metastasize.
When metastasis takes place, the secondary tumors can form at a variety of sites in the body, with one of the more common sites for metastasis being the lung.
Thus, inhibition of tumor metastasis to any extent would be beneficial and this would be true regardless of whether the agent involved in the inhibition had any effect on the primary tumor. Of course, if the agent also inhibited the primary tumor, this would be an additional advantage for the agent.
Humphries et al., Cancer Research, 46, 5215 (1986) describes the inhibition of experimental metastasis by castanospermine in mice. In addition, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 55,589, filed May 29, 1987 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,558) also describes the use of castanospermine in the inhibition of metastasis.